Well written article. It´s important to realize that Apple never was a marketshare leader. The IOS ecosystem is progressing just fine.

Apple continue to win customers due to a multitude of reasons, but the main reason is and will always be software. They are simply developing the best code, and hence success follows.

As for what the future will brings, time will tell. But the majority of Apples investments in the last 2-3 years have not gone to simply create an updated version of the ipad/iphone. I am absolutely certain they are making revolutionary progress on key "problems" we face, but as always they are keeping their cards secret until point of release. The Apple company has never been as healthy as it is right now, and this is not reflected in the share price.

I for one can not be any more excited about what the future will bring in terms of Apple problem-solving products. It will be amazing.

Winning what exactly? There's absolutely nothing to win, which is why don't get into the whole winning arguments. There is no endgame, no piling up on the pitcher's mound, no trophies, no rings. How many companies were 'King of the Hill' and had 'won' no longer exist?

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

Well written article. It´s important to realize that Apple never was a marketshare leader. The IOS ecosystem is progressing just fine.
Apple continue to win customers due to a multitude of reasons, but the main reason is and will always be software. They are simply developing the best code, and hence success follows.

As for what the future will brings, time will tell. But the majority of Apples investments in the last 2-3 years have not gone to simply create an updated version of the ipad/iphone. I am absolutely certain they are making revolutionary progress on key "problems" we face, but as always they are keeping their cards secret until point of release. The Apple company has never been as healthy as it is right now, and this is not reflected in the share price.

I for one can not be any more excited about what the future will bring in terms of Apple problem-solving products. It will be amazing.

What are these 'problems' you speak of?

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

I have said this previously, but I think what Apple should have done with that enormous pile of cash they literally have little idea what to do with, is build and deploy a world spanning network of satellites capable of delivering high bandwidth data to Apple devices. They could use this to leverage an eco-system advantage that Android couldn't begin to touch, not to mention the scope this would provide for really taking over the living room.

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I made the same prediction, too .... It may happen after the ground infrastructure (Data Centers) is established They can afford it ...

Apples IOS is not really Windows, Android is...Fo two reasons Ecosystem: I cn buy a windows license and do anything wth it, I can put it on any hardware that can run it, I can replace the shell, I can do pretty much anything.

I can also create android software and distribute it without the blessing of the mothership,

Apple ios runs only on their devices and allows practicaly no customization, also cant distribute software without apples blessing...that is why IOS is more an ecosystem and less a platform.

You can't quantify how much I don't care -- Bob Kevoian of the Bob and Tom Show.

I have said this previously, but I think what Apple should have done with that enormous pile of cash they literally have little idea what to do with, is build and deploy a world spanning network of satellites capable of delivering high bandwidth data to Apple devices. They could use this to leverage an eco-system advantage that Android couldn't begin to touch, not to mention the scope this would provide for really taking over the living room.

Apples IOS is not really Windows, Android is...Fo two reasons Ecosystem: I cn buy a windows license and do anything wth it, I can put it on any hardware that can run it, I can replace the shell, I can do pretty much anything.

I can also create android software and distribute it without the blessing of the mothership,

Apple ios runs only on their devices and allows practicaly no customization, also cant distribute software without apples blessing...that is why IOS is more an ecosystem and less a platform.

Jailbreaking.

Enterprise tools.

Web Apps.

No "mothership blessing" required.

Better than my Bose, better than my Skullcandy's, listening to Mozart through my LeBron James limited edition PowerBeats by Dre is almost as good as my Sennheisers.

"Apple, like Microsoft, has a huge platform advantage that it could lose if if fails to keep the iPhone a product with clear value to a large audience"

If the intimation is that MS *ever* had a clear value, I have to object. "Value" is not he same as "cheap" and MS never had the sort of "value" that iOS has. It could be argued that it never even had the *value* MacOS had. In my time running a university computing lab late 90s we spent the same amount of time supporting 16 Macs as 4 Wintel machines. Has that changed? Not really. My wife has gone through three $400 Windows laptops (mail web photos office) in the same 5 years as my $999 MacBook (all that plus running IT efforts and an iOS ecosystem and daily teaching and on-the-road machine).

Recent research shows the Android platform already has more download potential for developers and revenue is I think less but also catching up. The revenue element is obviously most important, but that will very likely exceed the iOS platform by next year.

Brings to mind the Blues Brothers' Wish Sandwich song, "Rubber Biscuit.": "you have two slices of bread, and you wish you had some meat."

I agree. Very silly article, when iPhone's market share worldwide is threatening to drop to single digits in Q3 and when Apple has dropped to less than 50% of the tablet market share (a market many pundits thought they would dominate forever) and clearly heading rapidly to 20%

Yes, Apple's mobile business is clearly heading the same way as their Mac business did - niche devices with a small market share. By next year we are going to see apps debuting first on Android before iOS, and having better versions there, e.g Facebook Home. The downwards momentum is pretty strong for Apple at the minute.

The only way Apple is like Microsoft is that they both make lots of money, but their share price will remain stagnant for the next 10 years.

Your thinking is flawed.

Apple more or less created the "tablet space" in 2010 when they launched the iPad. Starting with virtually 100% marketshare. Obviously as more players enters this segment, their marketshare will decline but their sales volume will continue to increase.

Let me give you a clear example... As I believe you might need it to understand what is going on here.

Last quarter Q2-2013 Apple sold 19.8million iPads - their marketshare as you posted was 48.20%

Exactly one year ago Q2-2012 Apple sold 11.8million iPads - their marketshare 63.10%. See where I´m going with this?

Both the iPhone & iPad are increasing at a rapid rate every single quarter. They are selling as many as they can possibly sell, the problem isn´t losing marketshare - it is creating enough devices for customers to buy. Last quarter they sold 37.4 million iPhones.. 90 days for the quarter including saturday/sundays means they had to produce 415.000 iPhones every single day day or 288.6 iPhones every second throughout the entire month.

Obviously the tablet space will increase tremendously for many years to come. IDC predicts that 174million tablets will be sold in 2013 and 282 million tablets will be sold in 2016. The market is doubling at a faster speed than Apple can produce enough tablets. As long as the iPad is the single most sold tablet out there, Apple has nothing to worry about when it comes to declining marketshare. It just means that more players are entering the playing field. What we do know is that Surface RT+Pro equals about 4million devices in the last 6 months. Nexus 4 is about 2million for the last 6 months. iPad is about 34 million.

So in the end marketshare is expected to decline for iPad - although sales volume is expected to increase. It does not matter too much to Apple, what matters though is profits, and Apple added a whopping $12 500 000 0000USD to their bank account for the last three months. That is all you need to know.

Cheap iphone, improved iWorks for iPad and wider availability of iBook and ibook editor and Apple will be we on their way to extending their reach in every aspect of users working and personal lives. The Apple eco system and the fantastic apps there in is the glue to Apple's future, just as Office was the adhesive for MS.

Improvements in iOS and OSX will enable this to remain fresh and the hardware will need to remain reliable, enabling and sexy.

Give folk the access to this eco system and the rest will look after itself.

Android is the new WIndows.. Multiple hardware options driving technology forward. iOS led the way in gui, but it is raplidly becoming a legacy walled garden with close minded bigotism and a big brother we-knows-whats-best-for-you attitude, with an unhealthy one-size-fits all approach to computing..

Wait, did you hit ALL the anti-Apple platitudes in just one post? Yes!!

1.) Eliminate having to enter username/passwords, replace it with a better alternative. = Bio metric scanner

2.) Eliminate the need for "recharging" batteries, in fact let us come up with a entirely different approach to power our devices. Instantly charged within seconds - last for weeks - eliminate the need for large and heavy batteries. Fuel Cells

4.) Lets create a TV in 4K UltraHD display that you can control with voice/touch and where you can install apps, play games/movies/music. But in a much better and easier way then current television sets.

The problem with consumers is that their own world everything is already perfect. Why do I need this and that? Only after releasing a problem-solving device will consumers realize what the problem actually was. Apples R&D, talent and market channels have never been as healthy as right now. No product launches simply indicates to me they have had a major breakthrough, and we are about to find out what it was..

Shares are tanking because the nature of Apples business is not finance-friendly. Apple can and will not talk about future products. How can you convince an investment bank about future prospects if you can not reveal or talk about it at all? The finance world is all about facts. In Apples case there simply is not more products coming after the last one. You can´t put a number on it. It´s as simple as that.

fun Sunday reading from DED. don't think i go with the MS metaphor, except for the key "stickiness" factor. two points:

while almost every popular media, social, and locational service you can acess via Android has also been ported to iOS - including most of Google's (they have to because sellimg ads is their business and they can't afford not to) - of coure the reverse is not true. if your media is in iTunes and your pix are in iPhoto - the most common setup for Apple users - you can't access them via an Apple Android app, since there ain't ever going to be any. yes they can be moved to other Android apps, but the process is more trouble than average users will go thru. so once committed, most average users will indeed stick with iOS products. but it is much easier to switch from Android to iOS and bring all that stuff with you via whatever dual-OS brand apps you used for them.

this "one way street" for switching is very much to Apple's longterm advantage.

second, there is no "Android" anymore. "Android" as a single platform is a myth. there is Google android, the original. and there is Amazon android and soon Samsung android and others. and most of all, there are the multiple "white box" androids multiplying in China and India and elsewhere that have nothing to do with any familiar android stuff here (even their Angry Birds is fake).

which is why all the android global market share stats we hear so much about are fake too.

iOS is not the New windows.. Android is the new Windows currently, with a multiple HW-vendors approach, and rapidly growing dominance in market-share and installed base.

Apple however s becoming this eras Microsoft, in terms of anti-competitive behavior, and trying to lock customers into a closed eco-system to gain advantages and suck more money from iConsumers!

No one has to buy an iDevice so how is that anticompetitive? I buy my music from amazon. I have ultraviolet movies. If anything Android is anticompetitive. Giving away software for free while others charge a licensing fee.

No one has to buy an iDevice so how is that anticompetitive? I buy my music from amazon. I have ultraviolet movies. If anything Android is anticompetitive. Giving away software for free while others charge a licensing fee.

Manufacturers being able to fork it and not use any of Google's services kinda kills your anti competitive claim. There's a big difference between giving something away and someone else taking it. The OS is on it's servers and anyone including you and I can get a hold of it to use as we please.

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

Manufacturers being able to fork it and not use any of Google's services kinda kills your anti competitive claim. There's a big difference between giving something away and someone else taking it. The OS is on it's servers and anyone including you and I can get a hold of it to use as we please.

Interesting analogy. As in most cases, there are arguments that support this just as there are many that contradict the model.

The most important contradictory argument is this - Windows has always been made available via many hardware vendors. Consumers and business customers have choices. As we can see in the Android world, it is Samsung and not necessarily Android that is attracting the most customers.

Apple doesn't offer choice, and really offers limited variety. So it is hard to imagine Apple ever dominating marketshare like Microsoft has done with Windows.

In the end, I think these analogies are interesting fodder for discussion but hardly accurate. The fact is that neither iOS nor Android is tracking Windows' history.

Google, Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft are all working to build similar mobile ecosystems for their Android, Kindle, TouchWiz/Bada/Tizen and Windows Phone platforms, but they all have little to leverage and transform apart from minority segments of customers attracted to low priced hardware. These customers are not very valuable because they don't attract the kind of developer effort that reinforces the value of the underlying platform and ecosystem, creating a vicious cycle of failure.

Mostly true. I agree that the majority of non-iPad users are either looking for rock-bottom prices (and don't mind the bad quality) or they simply have no idea what they need, and are looking for a "My First Pad Computer" experience to get their toes wet. To see what this whole post-PC thing is all about. The latter will get iPads if they ever progress past the newbie-pad-user stage. They'll then discover Apple's vast and robust app + content + services infrastructure, and they'll be Apple users forever.

I'd add that Kindle users are probably more valuable to Amazon than generic (aka non-forked) Android users are to, well, anybody. Kindle Fire acts as an at-home point of sale terminal mashed together with a text/audio/video consumption device. Directing the user straight to Amazon goods and media, of course. In a sense, it acts as a hardware component in Amazon's retail ecosystem. And of the companies in the quoted paragraph ("Google, Samsung, Amazon, and Microsoft"), Amazon has the biggest and best ecosystem.

And, as Daniel carefully explains elsewhere in the article, the ecosystem is the key to acquiring and maintaining your mobile user base. Good luck to any manufacturers trying to catch up to Apple and Amazon.

Google doesn't sell it. You and I can make a SolimanX phone put a forked version of Android and our very own app store and give absolutely nil to Google. In my book that's the epitome of anticompetitiveness.Edited by dasanman69 - 5/5/13 at 10:35am

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

The most important contradictory argument is this - Windows has always been made available via many hardware vendors. Consumers and business customers have choices. As we can see in the Android world, it is Samsung and not necessarily Android that is attracting the most customers.

But there haven't been any "forks" of Windows. All hardware manufacturers are required to ship (a) standard version[s] of Windows (plus or minus random per-manufacturer spamware.) The result, for end users, is a single Windows experience independent of whatever hardware they end up with. Different hardware, same UI. Microsoft has subjugated their hardware partners by establishing the importance of software over hardware. So in terms of actual experience, customers have zero choice.

Originally Posted by stelligent

Apple doesn't offer choice, and really offers limited variety. So it is hard to imagine Apple ever dominating marketshare like Microsoft has done with Windows.

But consumers do have freedom of choice. Plenty of variety out there. They can buy smartphones from Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, HTC, LG, and others. All with different user experiences in addition to the different hardware. Vastly more variety than in the Wintel PC world.

And yet iPhone totally dominates smartphone sales in the US. 39% US smartphone market share and growing. Samsung is #2 at 21.7% and growing more slowly. Do the math.

Recent research shows the Android platform already has more download potential for developers and revenue is I think less but also catching up. The revenue element is obviously most important, but that will very likely exceed the iOS platform by next year.

Revenue isn't catching up and the most important market - the US is increasing share for Apple. This proves that Apple can win where it is equal in cost (the effective cost of iPhones is cheaper in the US). Apple will probably try and win the middle market back in rich countries. And it does need a low cost alternative in poorer countries. But not for the next few years.

I see Apple massively expanding their payments API over time. If the can get users to put in their bank details - which is no different from a debit card for the user but bypasses visa etc. - they can use NFC to get payments from apps, think an oyster app in the UK - and if these payments take off per user, they can start making cheaper phones.

Apple doesn't care about any of this. They have repeatedly said they don't care about market share.

In the sense that they would make a design choice just to gain share, no they don't.

This is something many, including DED, forget. Apple doesn't let price points, stock value or market share guide their game. They could not that Steve is dead but the time since this has shown that following their hearts as Steve asked them to means sticking with that bit of the 'old school'

I agree. Very silly article, when iPhone's market share worldwide is threatening to drop to single digits in Q3 and when Apple has dropped to less than 50% of the tablet market share (a market many pundits thought they would dominate forever) and clearly heading rapidly to 20%

The followup question to that is: is Apples % falling because their number of sales is falling or because there's more devices added into the mix increasing the total. While I suspect it's a touch of both its likely more of the latter than the former as we've seen the Surface, several Android etc new lines come out.

I would be curious to see that chart plotted with total sales numbers for Apple's tablets and all brands, markers for when new items launched and even just the number of tablet models on sale during a given period. The overall would likely paint a slightly different picture than just showing their share %.

As long as the iPad is the single most sold tablet out there, Apple has nothing to worry about when it comes to declining marketshare.

Thats ignoring the network effect. Loss of market share is not inevitable. It did not happen to Windows for example. Apple is losing market share because its them against all the other OEMs. iOS would have maintained market share if other OEMs could license the OS, but of course we know that will never happen.

Basically because iOS is closed from a licensing POV the market share loss was inevitable. And at a critical point that also means a loss of influence. When Apple gets to 10% market share, like in the PC business, do you really think games will be released on iOS first? Or social apps? What would be the point, except for a trial run?

I would have though long time Mac users would have known market share very much does matter, no matter what Apple's profits are.

Dumping, where a company sells a product in a competitive market at a loss. Though the company loses money for each sale, the company hopes to force other competitors out of the market, after which the company would be free to raise prices for a greater profit.

How can Google raise the price on something free?

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

Dumping, where a company sells a product in a competitive market at a loss. Though the company loses money for each sale, the company hopes to force other competitors out of the market, after which the company would be free to raise prices for a greater profit.

How can Google raise the price on something free?

Google is in the "eyeballs" business, not the phone business. Any way they can, they try to get more people using their services.

I believe his (jungmark's) contention is what you are describing is anticompetitive (since they are giving something away for free, as opposed to charging for it). This would seem to be a totally ridiculous contention, except it has been made in earnest (by the likes of Microsoft) against the free software movement.

Both the law and common sense say that you're wrong.

If it was as simple as 'giving something away', then you might have a point. But, instead, Google has used an enormous market power in the search and internet advertising areas to leverage their way into an entirely different market - mobile devices. At least in the US (and in Europe, as well, IIRC), that's illegal. That is exactly why Microsoft was punished for bundling IE. Giving IE away for free was not a problem - if Netscape or anyone else had done it. But MS used their monopoly in the OS arena to try to lock in the Internet, as well.

That's exactly what Google is doing with Android.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

If it was as simple as 'giving something away', then you might have a point. But, instead, Google has used an enormous market power in the search and internet advertising areas to leverage their way into an entirely different market - mobile devices. At least in the US (and in Europe, as well, IIRC), that's illegal. That is exactly why Microsoft was punished for bundling IE. Giving IE away for free was not a problem - if Netscape or anyone else had done it. But MS used their monopoly in the OS arena to try to lock in the Internet, as well.

That's exactly what Google is doing with Android.

How did they leverage their way in? Not one single manufacturer is forced to use Android they chose to and can totally keep Google out of it. Samsung did just that with the first Galaxy S, but Google got smart and put all its apps in the Play Store, before then Google apps were built in to the OS.Edited by dasanman69 - 5/5/13 at 12:20pm

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX